From Joburg to Woe-burg – Is there still hope for the City of Gold?

Anyone who loves Springbok rugby will be familiar with the Bomb Squad – the brainchild of head coach Rassie Erasmus that sees the Bok bench heavily laden (6-2 or sometimes even 7-1) with massive forwards. The idea is genius in its simplicity: let the starting line-up of forwards empty their tanks in the first half, and then substitute the entire lot with an intimidating group of world class replacements for the last 40 minutes.

The latest “copy-cat” however, comes from a very different – and entirely unexpected – quarter.

Johannesburg Mayor, Dada Morero, in his State of the City Address earlier this month, outlined a turnaround plan to tackle the city’s collapsing infrastructure, which included the introduction of a specialised “bomb squad.”

As I’ve highlighted before in a previous article, our once proud and beautiful City of Gold is tarnished almost beyond recognition and needs around R200 billion just to affect necessary repairs to roads and other infrastructure, and address the many other pressing issues facing the city.

The mayor referred to Joburg’s “state of rot” and said, “we need extreme actions to resolve our challenges.”

The so-called Bomb Squad, which, in the mayor’s words, is a “a high-powered implementation impact team,” is a key driver of these actions.
He went on to say, “This bomb squad will be led by the ANC Veterans’ League boss Snuki Zikalala, and will remove constraints that impact the City’s ability to create the Joburg we want to see.”

It all, as usual, sounds very promising. But it begs one critical question:
What does Mayor Morero mean by “removing constraints?” As far as I can see, the main constraint is a crippling lack of available funds to fix the myriad problems.

And I’m not sure how even the biggest, strongest and most muscly bomb squad can make that problem go away.
It’s something the mayor acknowledges, if a little reluctantly.

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